It is quite amazing that a port becomes a tourist attraction in a major city. Yet, going to Hamburg without spending several hours watching these gigantic facilities is to miss what most characterizes this northern German city. The port of Hamburg, with an area of 85km², is almost as large as the city of Paris! And we will spare you the other statistics about traffic and the amount of goods that passes through it…

To visit the port, we chose to use the water buses of the public transportation system which allowed us to make several stops… and to approach the huge container ships bound to exotic lands!

Une vue partielle du port, à partir du clocher de l’église St. Michaelis. L’Elbe, en avant-plan, débouche une centaine de kilomètres plus loin dans la mer du Nord. / A partial view of the harbour, viewed from the bell tower of the St. Michaelis Church. The Elbe, in the foreground, leads to the North Sea a hundred miles away.C’est l’endroit de la démesure, avec les gigantesques grues qui chargent et déchargent les navires nuit et jour. Les opérations sont entièrement automatisées et contrôlées d’un poste situé à distance. / This is the place of excess, with huge cranes that load and unload ships day and night. The operations are fully automated and controlled from a station located further away.C’est le départ! Au moment où nous traversions le fleuve, cet immense navire entamaît sa traversée. / This is departure time! When we started our travel on the river, this huge cargo ship was beginning her voyage.Puisque notre traversier naviguait plus vite, nous avons vite fait de rattraper le colosse. Point de vue époustouflant sur ce géant des mers (338m de longueur!) / Since our ferry was sailing faster, we quickly caught up with the colossus. Breathtaking views on this giant of the sea (338m in length!)Suzanne, cheveux au vent, qui essayait de compter le nombre de conteneurs! / Suzanne, hair flying, trying to count the number of containers!Le bateau bleu est une des navette fluviales sur laquelle nous avons voyagé. Nous étions bien petits à côté du mastodonte! / The blue boat is one of the water buses on which we traveled. We were quite small next to the behemoth!Le trafic maritime sur l’Elbe est intense. Ici, nous avons dû attendre que ce navire passe avant de continuer notre traversée. Priorité à droite… ou au plus gros! / Marine traffic on the Elbe is intense. Here, we had to wait until the ship passed before continuing our journey. Priority to the right… or to the biggest!Difficile à voir sur la photo, mais ce navire en chargement était le Toronto Express! Si vous demeurez à Montréal, vous pourrez le voir le 7 octobre, date prévue de son arrivée! / Difficult to see from the picture, but that ship being loaded was the Toronto Express! If you live in Montreal, you will be able to see her on October 7, her anticipated arrival!Une flottille de bateaux remorqueurs prêts à aider à la navigation. / A flotilla of tugs boats ready to help with navigation.

8 thoughts on “Le port de Hambourg / Port of Hamburg”

I love harbours or ports as you call them… it keeps me busy all day.. the size of those container ships is beyond belief… our one port .. Durban has recently had the mouth entry widened and deepened to be able to handle the biggest container ship in the world… unfortunately I have not had the privilege of seeing it yet…
Enjoyed this ride on the water taxi with you…

Of course as a Haligonian, I’ve seen lots of container ships but the ability to get up close via a water transport is unusual. The scale of operations is amazing. Theses beomoths need efficiency to economical and it appears that Hamburg has that down to a science.

Thanks Jacqui. Well, I have learned something as I didn’t know that people from Halifax were called Haligonian…nice name. It was indeed very impressive to be so close to these big ships. You do get a real sense of their size when you are sailing so close to them.